Openings For White: The Bird's Opening (Pt. 1)

Hello my fellow birds, 

Today, we will be going in depth into the very infamous Bird's opening.

In 1855, the Bird's opening was first mastered by master Henry Bird. 

 So, let us look into the pros and cons of this opening, while going in depth on how you can build on the opening and surprise your opponent with its simplicity. 

This is the start of an amazing series of all the openings as white! Look forward for part 2 and beyond!

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Pros and Cons - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

Pros

• It is simple
• It is surprising 
• It can be very useful to build on as a powerful defense/attack. 
• Makes good position for knight. 
• A lot more, which will be explained in the strategy building section

Cons

• Weakens your king a little bit.
• You have to be prepared for the From's Gambit (opposite of the Englund's gambit)
• Well played opponent can equalize

This is a basic summary of what you get out of this opening - hope this helps!

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Starting Position - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Usually, chess players push the d4/e4 pawns, but the Bird opening utilizes the move "f4".

This opens up a good shield for the Knight to move in on f3.

here, you can see that the Bird opening was used, and the knight is preparing to move to f3, forming a useful attack and defense system. Perhaps, moving the e pawn or the g pawn 1 space could strengthen the defense as knights can hop over them causing no sabotage. So even if it might weaken your king, you can quickly build a defense. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Strategy Building - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

So, you might be wondering how you can use the Bird opening to win a game.

To do this, you need to know how to build a strategy off the opening.

Situation No. 1. The fianchetto

Like said in the last part, you can bring out your knight with the combination of 1 or more surrounding pawns to make a strong defense while allowing the knight to continue its attack. But the useful other in the case for white would be to move the b2 pawn to b3, allowing the knight to move into the c3 square, later allowing the c1 bishop, to move to b2, attacking the h8 rook, and if the king () castles kingside (o-o), it would also threaten the black king. 

Here, you can see that first the pawn moves b3. Then the knight moves c3, making the bishop move to b2, making the fianchetto. with the knight preventing the other bishop from taking bishop and / or rook. But that is only if black responded to the opening with the fianchetto, which is quite possible, and will be explained later. Here we see that black did some moves developing their pieces, a normal opening for chess players. There are many alternatives for the Bird opening for specific cases, we will be reviewing that in the next part of "Strategy Building."

Situation No. 2. Fianchetto denied: Center variation

 Let's say that black blocks of your bishop's path with pawns. In this case, your bishop wouldn't be that useful since they are better in open spaces. In this case, don't do any of the fianchetto stuff. Instead, you can casually move the d4/e4 pawns like usual. opening space for your queen and bishops. This way, you will have an attack developing in all parts of the board, allowing you to stop your opponent in their tracks. This beginning-of-the-game tactic can strengthen your army for the middlegame. Keep in mind that all these strategies go for the white player mainly. 

In this demonstration, you see that the f4 pawn and g1 knight are already in their developed places from the start of the bird opening. You see that your opponent's pawns would be blocking the path if you were to do the fianchetto, and because bishops work better with open lines, there is no point in doing it. So as an alternative, you would do what most of the time players/ you do, which is moving the e and d pawns to d4/e4. This opens up a large line for your light - squared bishop and gives a semi-open file for the dark squared bishop. The semi open file has a likely chance of being opened up later in the game. The queen has way to get itself into a position that can form a strong attack and defense. You don't have to worry about your King, as it is protected. You should save your two rooks for later in the game as it is advisable to bring your valuable pieces such as queens and rooks out later in the game. Once it reaches the endgame, your king has room to move around, like usual and help pawn promotion. You have a lot of advanced pawns already because of the opening. And as a bonus, the knight on f3 will protect the d4 pawn whilst building a good attack on the other squares. Perhaps later on we could put our b1 knight to c3(c3), protecting the e4 pawn, adding a double protecting system along with the dark squared bishop.

Situation 3: The Fianchetto Faceoff 

But let's say the pawn didn't block your path, and you were able to pull through with the fianchetto. But if while you are arranging the fianchetto, your opponent also defends with a fianchetto, a faceoff that can be very "dechesstating" defense. You want to know how to combat this defense. You want to make sure that you don't move your knight, as you will allow the enemy bishop from the fianchetto to capture your bishop AND threaten your rook. I know that if that happened you could move your rook, but you would be losing a bishop and get nothing out of it. Not paying attention to that will win your opponent material of just about 3 points. Paying attention will come to the conclusion that you shouldn't move your knight and try to put pressure on their defense by bringing out your other pieces 

Here, white has fought against the fianchetto faceoff by putting pressure on the pawn near the fianchettoed bishop threatening a later attack. This is a common strategy that can eventually win material. You just have to lure the fianchettoed pieces into the correct position so that you can win material - possibly even a rook! A castled king might come to surprise at the swift move of your fianchettoed white bishop. 

Situation 4: The Tricks of the Trade

There are so many unique ways to use the bird's opening to win material. There even is away to use your opponent's attack to benefit your game. You can "bend" black's firepower into the opponent losing a rook. possibly even a queen trade, or a close encounter to black's king. I learnt all this from my experiences with the bird's opening. If you want to learn an opening, the best things to do are experiment with bots, friends, or even strangers! Or, as another way when you don't feel like playing is refer to blogs like this one! This situation will introduce you to how you can lead a pin for you to a fork for black. It might be confusing, but I will explain through the following position/game

Here, you see that the bird's opening was played, and black's bishop attacked and pinned the white knight. See how white simply responded by castling making black think that it was safe to s trade. Then black swoops in captures and threatens the rook. Under the pressure, black butcher's its position by moving its knight to protect its rooks. This results in fork, making the queen block, then you capture the rook and trade queens and win a pawn.

But what if you didn't trade queens, once the queen blocks, you could capture the pawn using the bishop. The normal response would be to capture with the black king. This would move the king away, leaving the queen undefended, which would result in you winning a queen for the sacrifice of the bishop. If your opponent doesn't capture, instead moves d7, you can check again by e6, offering sacrifice again. If the opponent moves back to original square, just trade the queens. 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -What NOT to do - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In this section, we will review one of the only things you MUST NOT do in a game.

The Bird style Fool's mate

You probably know what the fool's mate is from my previous blog. Well, after the move f4, you must not do the move g4. If the opponent moved their e pawn up, then they could checkmate after the g4 move by moving h4#.

Here is a diagram showing a situation. In fact, I managed to get this position in a bullet game. The king can't move out of check, no piece can block it, and the black queen can't be captured. Make sure you watch out for this if you are black but avoid moving g4 if you are white. 

   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Why an opponent might be surprised - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -

Due to its simplicity, opponent's will not expect such an opening. This will allow you to take advantage and catch your opponent by surprise as they probably won't pay too much mind to it. 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Variations - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The From's Gambit:  This gambit would mean that black would move e5, putting the pawn for a gambit. You have a choice to either accept or decline it. I say it is safer to decline as gambits are usually for the opponent to get an advantage. 

Here you can see the From's Gambit, as the move e5 was played by black.

Dutch Variation with g3

Move set: f4   d5

The Dutch variation with g3 is when the opponent moves to d5 followed by the move g3 from white defending, allowing a fianchetto by the move g2.

Here, the g3 Dutch variation is played. 

Dutch Variation with e3

Like the last one, it starts with black's move d5. But then instead of g3, you move e3. This allows you to go maybe for the stonewall formation with d2-d4. 

Here it is e3 Dutch variation being played. 

Bird's Opening: From's Gambit, Schlechter Gambit

You already know what the From's gambit is. Did you know that there is another variation that starts by the From's Gambit e5 move? First, white needs to accept the gambit. Then after that, the f4 pawn should know be on e5. Then black plays c6, threatening the white pawn. This makes a variation of the From's gambit known as the Schlechter Gambit. 

Here, white has previously accepted the From's gambit, placing its pawn on e5. Now, black moves its knight onto c6, threatening to capture the e5 pawn. It is now the Schlechter Gambit.

Bird's Opening: Dutch, Sturm Gambit

There are just so many variations. You already know of two possible gambits in the Bird's opening: The From's gambit and the Schlechter gambit. But do you know that there is another gambit called the Sturm Gambit.

It requires the move:

1. f4   d5

2. c4    dxc4

3. e4  (...) 

Basically, you give away a pawn on c4. This can only happen if the pawn moves to d5 after the move f4. The opponent has to accept, then you move e4, opening attack on the pawn through your light squared bishop.

Here, you see that the move f4 was played by white, followed by d5, making it the Dutch variation. Next, white plays c4, making it Sturm's Gambit. The reason it is a gambit is with the follow-up e4, making the white squared bishop attack.

In this image, you see why this is a gambit as it shows the bishop's attack line that was opened up with the move e4. Although, you need to keep watch for the move c6, as it stops you from capturing the pawn. 

Bird's opening: Mujannah formation

There are even more variants! Here, we look at the Mujannah formation

1. f4 f6  

2. c4 (...)

The formation starts up with the flank Bird's opening, then moves on to the common move nf6 played by black. 

- Note that the mujannah formations depends on the move Nf6, as it wouldn't be called that without the move

Then, white follows up with the move c4, opening up a "strange" line for white's queen enabling the move a4. 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -History of the opening:  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

  This flank opening was championed and named by English master Henry Bird. This opening's potential was displayed by defeating and defending against other masters of the time, such as Emanuel Lasker, Johannes Zukertort, and more. 

  Although the opening isn't that much popular, many grandmasters such as Nimzowitsch played it. In the modern day, it is also rarely but occasionally played by grandmasters Magnus Carleson, Hikaru Nakamura, and more.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Great Games featuring the Bird opening  - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Here I will show you a game in which I played the Bird's opening and got a big advantage.

Here, there are inaccuracies and blunders, and I threatened a rook but didn't get successful. The game was pretty complicated as the pawns were restricting many of the pieces' movements. So, I pushed a pawn and protected it with my queen. He threatened me with his bishops, but I dodged and was able to get close to the pawn trying to defend against the 8-th file. He was coming dangerously close to checkmate, but he didn't see it to my relief. Then I swooped in for a rook trade making king take my rook. Now that the other rook was undefended, I was able to capture it, check, move out of the way and promote me queen. I used my second queen to get his only queen off the board since I already had one more. It was worth it since I immediately started eating up my opponent's pawns while dealing with his bishop defense. I was able to check to win the bishop so I could open up space for my other pawns to promote. His king came near my queen defending while I captured his pawn and continued moving up. He captured one of my pawns, but right after I promoted, I noticed that his pawn was about to promote. So, I did a series of checks that lead to checkmate by 2 queens. 

Here, we see that I started off with the Bird's opening, anchoring my knight with e3 afterwards. Then. I opened a line for my bishop and traded it for a knight. Then, he did the same thing with the knight on f3. I used this to my advantage, as my queen recaptured and now sees the other side of the board. Next move, I get really close to his king, check, he blocks. Then I move my knight. This checks him, leaving him with two options: either to capture my knight and lose a queen or move his king. For some reason, he captured my knight and literally "hung" his queen. It was a really good game I was hoping to finish, but unfortunately, he had to resign. This is why I say don't resign because it isn't good sportsmanship. I only resign when I really got to go somewhere in real life. But you can see how the Bird's opening gave me an advantageous position early here. 

Here, I used it a similar way to the first game. I used them trading bishop for knight to get my queen to fork and win a rook and a few more pieces. Then I used it to win material before checkmating with my 28-point advantage. 

Here, I used the Bird's opening to get an advantage by making a barrier against enemy pieces, castling early, and using the opening's advantage to win myself the game. I was about to get 2 queens and checkmate, but the opponent resigned. I keep saying - NEVER resign! 

Here, I used the Bird's opening to get a whole knight up, and trade off some pieces. I castled early, formed a barrier against Scholar's mate, and developed my pieces well. I tried to trade queens, but my opponent didn't recapture with his bishop. Instead, he attacked my queen with his rook. I captured his bishop, the swooped in with my bishop. Just like I thought, he got tempted and move to the rank 7 to attack my bishop. Now I checked with my queen. He blocked with his rook, knowing there is inevitable back rank mate, and I captured. Mate. 

Here was another game where he resigned after I took his queen. 

Here, he resigned as I got close to back - rank checkmating him.

- - - - - - - - - (ES)How to play a brilliant move using the Bird's - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -

So, you might be wondering what es means. Well, it is "exclusive section". What is an exclusive section? Well, it is a section unique to one separate opening.

You will see how to make a brilliant move with the bird's opening in the following game, but the example shown here was if the queen forks your knight with your king, then put the nearest bishop behind the knight or on the diagonal southeast of it. Then move your knight in a way that it can be captured using a pawn. This is a brilliant sacrifice as the instinct would be to capture the hanging knight. This draws away attention from the queen, making the oppoent miss that the knight move opened up a space for bishop takes queen.

Here is proof that this is my game:

In conclusion, we see that the bird's opening isn't necessarily the worst at all. Although there are a few cons, the pros can easily make up for it by making a strong defensive line. The Bird's opening is a very unique and simple opening that can very well be used to get an advantage during the game, if you utilize it properly! Remember: don't make a fool's mate!

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - - - - - - - - Update Log - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - 

Aug 17, 2024: Blog was published 

Aug 27, 2024: Aesthetics improved

August 29/30, 2024: Situation 4 added to strategy building for white!

September 2, 2024 - changed name to " A Winning Tactic: The Bird's Opening" 

September 5, 2024 - name change - into Pt. 1 of Openings for white series. 

September 5, 2024 - finished the mujannah formation section - This blog is now COMPLETE.